Links to Foundation to Year 10

Progression from the F-10 Australian Curriculum: Science

The Earth and Environmental Science curriculum continues to develop student understanding and skills from across the three strands of the F-10 Australian Curriculum: Science.

In the Science Understanding strand, the Earth and Environmental Science curriculum draws on knowledge and understanding from across the four sub-strands of Biological, Physical, Chemical and Earth and Space Sciences. In particular, the Earth and Environmental Science curriculum continues to develop the key concepts introduced in the Biological Sciences and Earth and Space Sciences sub-strands, that is, that a diverse range of living things have evolved on Earth over hundreds of millions of years; that living things are interdependent and interact with each other and with their environment; and that the Earth is subject to change within and on its surface, over a range of timescales as a result of natural processes and human use of resources.

Mathematical skills expected of students studying Earth and Environmental Science

The Earth and Environmental Science curriculum requires students to use the mathematical skills they have developed through the F-10 Australian Curriculum: Mathematics, in addition to the numeracy skills they have developed through the Science Inquiry Skills strand of the Australian Curriculum: Science.

Within the Science Inquiry Skills strand, students are required to gather, represent and analyse numerical data to identify the evidence that forms the basis of their scientific arguments, claims or conclusions.. In gathering and recording numerical data, students are required to make measurements with an appropriate degree of accuracy and to represent measurements using appropriate units.

Students may need to be taught to recognise when it is appropriate to join points on a graph and when it is appropriate to use a line of best fit. They may also need to be taught how to construct a straight line that will serve as the line of best fit for a set of data presented graphically.

It is assumed that students will be able to competently:

perform calculations involving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of quantities
perform approximate evaluations of numerical expressions
express fractions as percentages, and percentages as fractions
calculate percentages
recognise and use ratios
transform decimal notation to power of ten notation
substitute physical quantities into an equation using consistent units so as to calculate one quantity and check the dimensional consistency of such calculations
solve simple algebraic equations
comprehend and use the symbols/notations <,>, ∆, ≈
translate information between graphical, numerical and algebraic forms
distinguish between discrete and continuous data and then select appropriate forms, variables and scales for constructing graphs
construct and interpret frequency tables and diagrams, pie charts and histograms
describe and compare data sets using mean, median and inter-quartile range
interpret the slope of a linear graph.